How Nature works is a fascinating book. I first heard of the late Per Bak and his sandpile theories when I some time back read an article by Koubatis and Schönberger (1995) on Risk management of complex critical systems. At that time I had just discovered the International Journal of Critical Infrastructure, and I was perusing their archives for articles I could use in my research on transportation vulnerability. Koubatis and Schönberger actually consider Per Bak’s “sandpile” model to be as relevant to business and society as Adam Smith’s legendary “invisible hand”. When I read that I was simply compelled to investigate more.

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